
Glass_£4^5_Z. 
Book 



^: 



Department of Public Instruction 
Bureau of Education 



Abraham Lincoln 



A selection of passages from his 

SPEECHES AND LETTERS 

with brief comments 



Published on the occasion of the celebration in the 
public schools of the Philippine Islands of the hun^ 
dredth anniversary of his birth, February 12, 1809 



80109 



Manila 

Bureau of Printing 

1909 






•:^09 



EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES AND LETTERS 
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



The selections from Abraham Lincoln's speeches and letters 
herein given, with the exception of a single brief passage, are taken 
from the period following his election as President of the United 
States, Avhen the days of his career as a great public debater were 
over. After his election to the presidency Mr. Lincoln made no 
argumentative speeches, although almost every public utterance is 
a heartfelt plea for the ends for which he was struggling. To ap- 
preciate his power and adroitness as a controversialist one must go 
back to the period preceding his nomination — the years of his active 
work in the West as an opponent of the extension of slavery. It 
is difficult to make extracts from these speeches for the reason 
that every part is closely bound together by logical arrangement, 
and the speeches to be appreciated must be studied in the light 
of the questions with which they deal. They are therefore 
omitted in preference for selections from his words when he w^as 
actually bearing the nation's burden in the midst of the stupendous 
Civil War. 

Lincoln's national prominence dates from 1854. At that time 
he came prominently before the country as an uncompromising 
opponent of the further extension of slavery to Territories of the 
United States, particularly the region known as the Nebraska 
and Kansas Territories. Lincoln was at that time a man of 45; 
a successful lawyer with a reputation throughout the bounds of 
his State, Illinois; but for the past five years he had taken no part 
in political life. In 1820 the famous agreement made in Congress, 
known as the Missouri Compromise, bound both parties to agree 
that slavery should not extend northward of the parallel of 36° 30'. 
Under this agreement the slavery question was held in abeyance 
for thirty years, but in 1850 it became the central political issue 
of America and continued so until the Civil War. The issue that 

Note. — The complete works of Abraham Lincoln have been published 
by Nicolay and Hay, two volumes. There are several small compila- 
tions, among them Chittenden's Abraham Lincoln's Speeches, and 
Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln in Everyman's Library, a 
recent publication to which Ambassador Bryce has contributed an in- 
troduction. 

3 



particularly aroused the opponents of the extension of slavery 
was the determination on the part of the slave States to carry 
the institution into the Kansas-Xebraska Territory, a region unor- 
ganized and under the power of Congress and expressly devoted 
by the terms of the Missouri Compromise to freedom. It was the 
proposal of Senator Douglas of Illinois, one of the most prominent 
and influential statesmen of his day, to allow the question to be 
reopened and to admit Kansas and Nebraska either slave or free as 
the populations of those regions should determine. Lincoln's op- 
position to Douglas began in 1854 and continued until the issue of 
Civil ^Yar brought them together, Douglas then loyally supporting 
the Union. In 1858 Lincoln challenged Senator Douglas to appear 
before the people of Illinois in a series of debates on the question 
at issue. The challenge Avas somewhat reluctantly accepted by 
Douglas but was finally arranged, and debates were held in seven 
different sections of the State, representing all. It was the 
most famous series of political discussions ever held in the United 
States; crowds that for that day were enormous attended each 
speaking, and the utmost efforts of both of these men were put 
forth in these weeks of discussion. B}^ successfully opposing one 
of the foremost statesmen of his day Lincoln established his repu- 
tation as a thinker of great ability and sincerity, and as a man who 
had a policy and dared defend it. From this time on he became 
a thoroughly national figure and in the West the leader of the 
Republican party, which organized at this time to prevent the 
further extension of slavery. Lincoln's policy was, that inasmuch 
as the Constitution guaranteed slavery in States where it was 
already established, its abolition was legally impossible without 
the consent of the people of those States, but that extended it 
should not be and that the utmost efforts of the freedom-loving 
population of the country should be devoted to keeping it within 
the limits where it was then known. In 1858 Lincoln went further 
and in what is perhaps the most important speech he ever made, 
delivered at Springfield, Illinois, on his nomination to the Senate 
of the United States, he declared his conviction that upon this 
matter the country could not remain divided but that it must 
become either all slave or all free. This brief but cogent and 
eloquent oration can not be condensed or abbreviated; it must be 
read as a whole in order to be appreciated. The opening para- 
graph, however, Avhich gives it its name, is as follows: 



the "divided house" speech. 

June 17, 1858. 
"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. 
We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated 
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end 
to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 
agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself can not 
stand.' I believe this Government can not endure permanently, 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
dissolved, — I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect 
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its 
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in 
all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." 

TO THE CITIZENS OF SPRINGFIELD, ON HIS DEPARTURE 
FOR WASHINGTON. 

The remaining extracts begin with the brief but affecting words 
with which he bade farewell to the people of his home town, who 
gathered at the station for their last view of him as he left for 
Washington. They were spoken from the rear platform of the 
train. 

February 11, 1861. 

"My Friends: No one, not in my position, can appreciate the 
sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I 
am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here 
my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know 
not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me 
which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any 
other man since the days of Washington. He never would have 
succeeded except by the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he 
at all times relied. I feel that I can not succeed without the 
same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty 
Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my 



6 

friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, 
without which I can not succeed, but with which success is certain. 
Again I bid you an affectionate farewell," 

FROM THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Only a portion of the First Inaugural Address is given, but 
this fragment embraces his appeal for a peaceful settlement of 
the troubles that had brought the North and South to the verge 
of war. His determination to defend the Union and the property 
of the Federal Government is not so clearly apparent in this 
selection. His most decisive paragraph was omitted by the advice 
of Mr. Seward, who became his Secretary of State. To Mr. 
Seward also is due the thought and the figure in the concluding 
paragraph, but in rewriting it, Mr. Lincoln, with his unerring 
taste for literary style, greatly improved and simplified the 
language. 

March 4, 1861. 

"* * * I take the official oath to-day with no mental res- 
ervations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or 
the laws by any hypercritical rules. 

"It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a 
President under our National Constitution. During that period 
fifteen diflferent and greatly distinguished citizens have, in suc- 
cession, administered the Executive branch of the Government. 
They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with 
great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter 
upon the same great task for the brief constitutional term of 
iovjf years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of 
the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

-X- * * -;c- * * * 

"Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not re- 
move our respective sections from each other nor build an im- 
passable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, 
and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; 
but the different parts of our country can not do this. They 
can not but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable 
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, 



to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory- 
after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier 
than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully- 
enforced between aliens than laws among friends? Suppose you 
go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss 
on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the 
identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon 
you * * *, 

"The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for 
the separation of the States. The people themselves can do 
this also, if they choose; but the Executive, as such, has nothing 
to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government 
as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, 
to his successor. 

"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate 
justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the 
world? In our present differences, is either party without faith 
of being in the right ? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations with His 
eternal truth and justice be on your side of the North, or on 
yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, 
by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. 

"-•^ * * My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking 
time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to 
a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will 
be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated 
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old 
Constitution, unimpaired, and on the sensitive point the laws 
of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will 
have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it 
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side 
in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate 
action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance 
on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still 
competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will 



8 

not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy 
the government^ while I shall have the most solemn one to 
'preserve, protect, and defend it.' 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must 
not break our bonds of affection. 

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature." 

HIS LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY. 

At this date we can only slightly appreciate the violence of the 
criticism to which Mr. Lincoln was subjected as the war dragged 
on. At times he seemed to be standing quite without support from 
any quarter. Early in the war the opponents of slavery began 
urging him to declare the slaves free. Lincoln's position on the 
slavery question has been indicated above. He recognized that the 
Constitution had guaranteed slavery to the Southern States and 
that legally, under ordinary circumstances, it could not be annulled 
by the Federal Government. The only possible right by' which, 
as President of the United States, he might decree its abolition 
was as a "war measure," aimed to reduce the power of the 
Confederacy and bring an earlier end to the conflict. Under the 
sanction of this right he finally acted but only after months of 
almost agonizing consideration. Many men in the "Border States," 
who had remained loyal to the Union, were slave owners; to act 
too soon and without their support would be to sacrifice their 
devotion. One of those most impatient for this action was the 
great journalist Horace Greeley, probably the most influential 
man in the United States. Finally in an open letter of the most 
scathing character, Greeley attacked the President for having de- 
layed too long. Mr. Lincoln made the reply given below, which 
reveals his amazing self-command, and is at the same time one 
of the most cogent and luminous defenses of a great policy that 
was ever penned. 



9 

"August 22, 1862. 

"1 have just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to 
myself through the 'New York Tribune.' 

''If there be in it any statements or assvunptions of fact which 
I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert 
them. 

"If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be 
falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. 

"If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial 
tone, I waive it, in deference to an old friend whose heart I 
have always supposed to be right. 

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have 
not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. 
I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. 

"The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer 
the Union will be, — the Union as it was. 

"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them, 

"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 

''My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, 
and not either to save or to destroy slavery. 

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would 
do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; 
and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that. 

"What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because 
I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear 
because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. 

"I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing 
hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe 
doing more will help the cause. 

"I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and 
I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true 
views. 

"I have here stated by purpose according to my views of 
official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed 
personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." 



10 

THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION. 

January 1, 1863. 

"Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a procla- 
mation was issued by the President of the United States, con- 
taining among other things the following, to wit: 

" 'Tliat on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as 
slaves, within any State or designated part of a State, the people 
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall 
be then, thenceforward and forever, free; and the executive govern- 
ment of the United States, including the military and naval au- 
thority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such 
persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

" 'That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, 
by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, 
in which the people thereof, respectively, shall be then in rebellion 
against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the 
people thereof, shall, on that day, be in good faith represented in 
the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at 
elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State 
shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervail- 
ing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and 
the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United 
States.' 

"Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the LTnited 
States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander in 
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, in time of 
actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of 
the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for 
suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, 
and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed 
for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above 
mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States 
wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion 
against the United States, the following, to wit: 

[Here follows the enumeration.] 



11 

"And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I 
do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said 
designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall 
be, free; and that the executive government of the United States, 
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize 
and maintain the freedom of said persons. 

"And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, 
to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and 
I recommend to them that in all cases when allowed, they labor 
faithfully for reasonable wages. 

"And I further declare and make known, that such persons of 
suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the 
United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other 
places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. 

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke 
the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of 
Almighty God." 

HIS LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER. 

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the Nation, 
Mr. Lincoln's position was extremely difficult. There was no 
General Staff from which he could seek advice and the first 
generals appointed by him were unsuccessful. He was often 
obliged to deal directly with the field commanders. The letters 
to General Hooker and to General Grant are representative of a 
correspondence characterized by patience, firmness and complete 
self-control. 

''January 26, 1863. 

"General: I have placed you at the head of the army of the 
Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me 
to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know 
that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite 
satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, 
which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics 
with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence 
in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. 
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good 
rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's 
command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition, 



12 

and thwarted him as much as j^ou could, — in which you did a 
great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and 
honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to 
believe it, of your recently saying that the Army and the Govern- 
ment needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in 
spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now 
ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. 
The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, 
which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for 
all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided 
to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and with- 
holding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor 
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an 
army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of 
rashness. BeAvare of rashness, but with energy and sleepless 
vigilance, go forward and give us victories." 

HIS LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT. 

"April 30, 1864. 
"Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign 
opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with 
what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. 
The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. 
You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish 
not to obtrude any constraints nor restraints upon you. While 
I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men 
in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less 
likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there 
is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail 
to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, 
may God sustain you." 

REMARKS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY 
AT GETTYSBURG. 

The brief address at the field of Gettysburg is his most famous 
utterance. Probably it could not be improved by the change of 
a single word, yet it was Avi'itten with a pencil on tne back of a 
letter while riding in the train to the occasion. It has come to be 
recognized as one of the enduring pieces of English literature. 



13 

November 19, 1863. 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated 
to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We 
have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting 
place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

"But in a larger sense we can not dedicate, we can not con- 
secrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor 
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have 
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that 
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and 
that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth." 

HIS LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY. 

Words could not exceed in dignity and appropriateness the 
lines to Mrs. Bixby. It is an example of the heart-breaking 
sympathy which the President extended at all times to the 
bereaved of the war. 

"November 21, 1864. 

"Dear Madam, — I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, 
that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on 
the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any 
words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss 
so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tendering to you 
the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic 
they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage 



14 

the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished 
memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be 
yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the Altar of Freedom. 

the second inaugural address. 

March 4, 1865. 

"Fellow-Countrymex : At this second appearing to take the 
oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an ex- 
tended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and 
proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and 
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else 
chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and 
it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. 
With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is 
ventured. 

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. 
All dreaded it; all sought to avert it. While the inaugural 
address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether 
to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the 
city seeking to destroy it without war, — seeking to dissolve the 
Union and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated 
war; but one of them would make war rather than let the 
nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let 
it perish. And the war came. 

"One-eighth of the whole popvilation were colored slaves, not 
distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern 
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and poAverful in- 
terest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of 
the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was 
the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by 
war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to 
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 



15 

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the 
duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the 
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and 
a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same 
Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each invokes His aid against 
the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask 
a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat 
of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. 
The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has 
been answered fully. 

"The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world 
because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall 
suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in 
the Providence of God, must needs come, but which having con- 
tinued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and 
that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as 
the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we dis- 
cern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the 
believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we 
hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until 
all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was 
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness 
in the right, as God gives us to see the right, — let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds; to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." 

O 



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